House-hunters decide on moving into a new property in just eight minutes, finds study

News at Newton Fallowell | 02/02/2018

House-hunters decide on moving into a new property in just eight minutes, finds study

Busy roads, damp patches and a bar in the living room are among the things that turn buyers away.

It takes just eight minutes for house-hunters to know whether a new property is for them, according to a study.

After less than 10 minutes inside a property, buyers know whether they should be getting out their chequebooks or turning around in the car.

Six in 10 adults will make their decision not to buy before even stepping through the front door – after just four and a half minutes of standing outside.

In contrast, 15 per cent of homeowners admitted they had already decided to buy without seeing the inside of the house, while 18 per cent have bought the first home they saw.

When viewing a property online, the average person takes eight minutes to choose whether to visit or not – as long as the advert is authentic.

More than three-quarters confessed to irritation at a property profile that did not reflect the true state of the home on offer.

“Listings are crucial to a home selling quickly – they need to be accurate detailed representations of a property," said a spokesman for the Foxtons estate agent, which commissioned the study. “The need to physically visit a property will remain strong for the foreseeable future, but new technologies such as Matterport 3D virtual tour are making it possible to view interiors and exteriors in much greater detail, helping house-hunters to narrow their property search quickly and efficiently.”

Obvious damp patches would signal an early exit for six in 10 Brits, while a house on a main road or cracks in the walls would send 40 per cent of house-hunters home.

As for the finer details, there are some decisive deterrents for adults once inside – ashtrays in rooms, dirty toilet pipes, overflowing bins and yellowed paintwork all feature in the top 40 list.

As do bad DIY, wheelie bins out front, untidy rooms and a bar in the living room.

Some of us would be put off by a utility room which was the size of a cupboard, a dining room which can’t fit a table big enough for a family of eight and awkward layouts.

When viewing properties online, six in 10 people find it impossible to see how big the rooms are, and 49 per cent can’t tell how light they are.

More than one in 10 complain they can’t tell the colour of rooms from static pictures, and 52 per cent find it difficult to tell how overlooked a property is.

A third of people would welcome the opportunity to see if their furniture would fit the space, while 36 per cent want a clear view of the layout of the rooms when looking at a property online.

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